There is quite a big difference between a person and a picture.
So far, I’ve pitched ideas about Wen Gods characters and map and the game world. But…
In order for us to realize the fact that characters in Wen Gods can have feelings and lore as strong as yours and mine, we have to make some rules for their existence. We need them to be able to see. Listen. Touch. And we must enable them to move. We expect certain of nature’s rules to work in Mycora – otherwise we cannot relate to it as a world we might live in.
Players should control their game characters, use them to interact with terrains on the world map, and the different content that each hexagonal tile contains. But of all the things a human can do, nobody in Mycora can do any of it yet.
We must create it.
So,
What can a human do? How does it function? What kind of a thing is a perfect human being?
Today, the observations in Jørgen Leth’s 1967 short film could probably be replaced by a human scanning his or her smartphone, but hey. Hold on to the idea that a human can do many things on its own. It can sense. Think. Store information. Explore. Even without Google. It can touch, feel, because it has a physical form, different physical forms. It can move. Become strong. It might be able to read, and read another person’s body language. It can make connections. All of this, and much more, are basic functionalities for a human being, in this or any other world, and we have to select from it, when we think about adding game mechanics.
Commands
All commands I list here are coded and part of the Mycora Discord bot. Their names may change – we’ll need your help to select the best commands to get the best gameplay. All commands, including updated ones, will be written into Mycora’s wiki.
What can a [human playing a] human in Mycora do, by default?
First, select who to be.
/avatar list
Shows a list of available avatars.
/avatar use
Let’s you select one of those avatars.
/avatar stats
Shows the selected avatar’s characteristics (Health, Experience, Mana, etc)
If you have unspent Character Points (CP) you can add them to your characteristics with /avatar add.
/avatar inventory
Shows you a list of the items the character carries in the game, if any.
We have created these functions, so you can /create and select a character, upgrade it, check its stats, and be in Mycora.
So, then, what can this perfect being do?
/Move
If you’re in the open land, you can move in 6 directions.
If you have a compass, you may push the arrows on the web map to move the character instead.
The hexagon you’re on might offer you more directions, like entering a portal, etc.
Or, on the other hand, if you’re inside a cave or a house or up against a mountain wall, some directions may be blocked.
/look
lets you take a closer look around.
You may find objects, items, hidden monsters and other players.
/look expands on the description the player got as they entered the hexagon; it reveals more details.
/look into
reveals further details about specific things. Handy, when you explore, and before you engage with monsters, NPCs or another player – you might want to know their stats and level. You may look @people – NPCs or other Player Characters (PCs), at $monsters, those sneaky little bastards, or into #objects you find – such as recipes, staffs, swords, chests, etc.
/take
You may take an object you find. It will be added to your inventory.
/put on and /take off
You may put on rings, armor, or shield and weapons from your inventory. And take them off…
/give
You may give objects to other players.
/drop
or drop an object you don’t want to carry. It will be dropped on the ground – and other players can take it. We’ll be implementing an option to drop objects in player owned spaces too, so you can have an external stash and not lose it.
/enter
lets you enter objects on a hexagon, like tents, a forge, a Dogg Inn…
And there can be objects inside objects. Inside objects. That actually couldn’t sound less natural or immersive. I’m afraid I am slowly getting brainwashed with programming language, sorry 😀 – what “objects inside objects” really means is, that after you’ve entered a tent or a shop or whatever, you may find stuff inside it like drawers and coffins, and inside those you might find…. yeah, you get the idea.
/leave
gets you out of there.
/talk
The perfect being, you, can speak!
You may engage with PCs and NPCs if they are in the same room as you. Players speak freely, either privately or to everyone in the room. NPC’s are bound by the dialogs that the game’s creator/game master has set. We experimented with parsers and machine learning, and (of course) we discussed training a ChatGPT to speak for NPCs, but we concluded that it won’t drive the story much forward. NPCs are there for a reason, which shouldn’t be to have endless chats with players. We rather want the players to interact with each other. Who knows, in the future we might add an in-game FAQ-bot GPT or expert on the Wen Gods lore, who sits by the open fire, but it’s not for this prototype/MVP, maybe another time.
/trade
Some of the NPCs will trade with you.
With trade mode on you can buy some useful goodies, and sell objects you found, looted, or bought, for in-game currency.
/attack
I’ll bite your leg off!
Small aggressive bastards, Sharpclaws Turtles.
Kinda weird-looking too, isn’t it? Well, Area 0 is the test area. Anything goes there 😉
BTW, just as players (mostly!) level up from winning battles, so do monsters and NPCs.
The better (and more) players that attack a monster or boss but fail to beat it, the stronger it will become.
Battles in Wen Gods are turn-based, currently fully automated. We’ll add semi-automatic combat for sure, for better gameplay (more strategic), so you can get to decide exactly when you want to use that new hard-earned very special Tempestuous Torrent of Thunderous Steel attack. And when to block or GTFO and flee. PvP battles will come, in certain areas.
Okay so… it was a very information-heavy blog post, an overview of the commands that Scor2k has created so far, to give life to the characters in Wen Gods, and enable the player to act as one. A simple and complex perfect being, not just an image of one.
Take it easy, we have a nice !help command too, and I’ll set up a “learn by doing” in-game tutorial.
What’s next?
Those were the commands to control a character. Now it needs a real world. With game mechanics.
You have limited space in your inventory, you can’t carry more than you have hands and strength for.
So, you want to go and sell that biiiiig treasure you found, but consider, did you save strength for carrying weapons, otherwise you’ll have to ask if another player is willing to come along and protect you. Or take the safe roads but run the risk of coming late? Others who went to the same area as you might come first and hear the clue first, or get the best price, take the best rewards? Rent a wagon, take everything with you, including your weapons’protection? Will the wagon attract thieves and outlaws? Strategy, limitations, goals, and choices, that’s what’s fun for gameplay. That’s what’s next.
As always, leave your thoughts and comments below in the comments field. Let me know what you think. Thanks.
/apenzl